Min Hooi Yong

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• PhD
• Associate Professor at University of Bradford

Numerous studies have shown a positive relationship between reading fiction and Theory of Mind (ToM) in children and young adults. However, there is little evidence to evaluate how reading habits relate to ToM in older adults. Also, nearly all studies exploring this topic have focused only on Western participants. In the current study of 229 partic...

The relationship between poor mental health and cognitive impairments in older age is well-established. Social engagement also influences cognitive ability; however much of the research on this relationship has not accounted for the impact of mental health and demographic factors. This study examined the associations between cognitive ability and m...

A higher sense of belonging has been shown to be associated with general wellbeing among students and its benefits are known to relate to academic and post-academic successes. Yet, we know little about newly enrolled students’ lived experience that links sense of belonging and wellbeing. This small-scale qualitative study (n = 8) showed that an int...

The objective was to explore the experiences of Malaysian Chinese and Indians during the lockdown, with a focus on mental health and lifestyle behavior factors that affected their work, health, and social lives, as well as their coping strategies during this period. Fifteen Malaysians (11 Chinese, 3 Indian, 1 Chinese–Indian) were interviewed from J...

The pandemic lockdown brought many benefits and challenges to everyone in the HEI. Some benefits include a teaching and learning environment that is more inclusive, particularly for students with a range of backgrounds that was previously not observable in a typical classroom. Yet many higher education (HE) institutions faced numerous challenges wi...

Evidence has shown that older adults have lower accuracy in Theory-of-Mind (ToM) tasks compared to young adults, but we are still unclear whether the difficulty in decoding mental states in older adults stems from not looking at the critical areas, and more so from the ageing Asian population. Most ToM studies use static images or short vignettes t...

Our objective was to explore the Malaysian public’s experience during the lockdown with a focus on mental health and lifestyle behaviour factors. Fifteen Malaysians (10 females, Mage = 37.64, SD = 1.64, range = 20-68) were interviewed about their experience on what were affecting their mental health and lifestyle behaviours. Four main categories we...

Cognitive interventions showed promising evidence in postponing the potential cognitive decline in older adults. However, the results of such interventions are still debated as not being ecologically valid nor producing transfer effect. Hence, we designed an ecologically valid intervention using online shopping applications to explore its effective...

Many governments including Malaysia imposed movement restrictions as a public health measure to minimize COVID-19 (coronavirus) risks. Due to prolonged isolation, poorer physical and mental health are expected in the general population. Our aims were to examine (1) the mediating role of perceived social isolation (SI) and fear of social isolation (...

Online cognitive testing has become more commonly used in both research and clinical settings, especially since the movement restrictions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, this online testing format is believed to pose significant challenges for older adults (OA). Although recent research with Western OAs has shown encouraging results, data...

One of the main challenges developing nations face is curbing bribery. While there are many efforts to curb bribery, most focused at macro level, such as law, while little has been examined at the micro level, e.g., individual behavior and intention. Those who did investigate at the micro level tend to focus on the recipients rather than the ones g...

This Case Study paper presents the first exploration of Speculative Design as a participatory democracy method for navigating the future of ageing in Malaysia. Speculative Design in the context of Global South is emerging, but without much data on how it is applied within different socio-economic conditions from the Global North countries. This Cas...

Studies reported many changes in individuals’ lifestyle, social and coping behaviours in the COVID-19 pandemic, yet little is known about the impact of movement restrictions on individuals’ mental health. We examined the effects of age, socioeconomic status (SES), and movement restrictions alongside individual behaviours on mental health in Malaysi...

Studies reported many changes in individuals’ lifestyle, social and coping behaviours in the COVID-19 pandemic, yet little is known about the impact of movement restrictions on individuals’ mental health. We examined the effects of age, socioeconomic status (SES), and movement restrictions alongside individual behaviours on mental health in Malaysi...

Past studies have shown evidence of transfer of learning in action video games, less so in other types, e.g. strategy games. Further, the transfer of learning from games to inhibitory control has yet to be examined from the perspectives of time constraint and logic contradiction. We examined the effect of strategy games (puzzle, turn-based strategy...

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) as a possible infectious aetiology in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been proposed since the 1980s. The accumulating research thus far continues to support the association and a possible causal role of HSV-1 in the development of AD. HSV-1 has been shown to induce neuropathological and behavioural changes of AD, su...

https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/events/1601/program-app/submission/235136

Objectives Older adults tend to have poorer Theory of Mind (ToM) than their younger counterparts, and this has been shown in both Western and Asian cultures. We examined the role of working memory (WM) in age differences in ToM, and whether this was moderated by education and culture (UK versus Malaysia). Method We used two ToM tests with differin...

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic compelled many countries including Malaysia to impose movement restrictions to curb spreading the virus. Evidence shows that prolonged isolation has negative effects on both physical and mental health. OBJECTIVE Our aims were to examine (1) the mediating effect of perceived social isolation (SI) and fear of social...

Planning ability is important in everyday functioning, and a key measure to assess the preparation and execution of plans is the Tower of London (ToL) task. Previous studies indicate that older adults are often less accurate than the young on the ToL and that there may be cultural differences in performance on the task. However, potential interacti...

Older adults tend to have poorer mental state understanding (Theory of Mind, ToM) than their younger counterparts, including in both Western and Asian cultures. The current study aimed to directly investigate whether there are any cultural differences in the pattern of age effects on ToM tasks. Given evidence of cultural differences in the developm...

Our aim was to examine the effect of a smartphone’s presence on learning and memory among undergraduates. A total of 119 undergraduates completed a memory task and the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS). As predicted, those without smartphones had higher recall accuracy compared to those with smartphones. Results showed a significant negative relatio...

Past research has found that several brain event-related potentials (ERPs) were sensitive to the perception of ethnic differences displayed on human faces. This body of research suggests that the phenomenon of "race perception" involves a cascade of cognitive processes that includes both automatic and overt attentional mechanisms. However, most of...

This Little Book presents what Speculative Design is, what are its benefits for NGOs and Community Groups, and how it can be used by these groups in Malaysia, as well as other countries. Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and Community groups across the world are seeking new ways of engaging communities and of raising public and Government awarene...

This Little Book tells you what Speculative Design is, what the benefits for policy-making are, and how it can be used by policy-makers in Malaysia. Policy teams in several parts of the world are experimenting with a range of design methods and have touched upon a new method known as speculative design (Government Office for Science, 2015a). Specul...

This study examines the relationship between perceived control and intergroup discrimination. Two hypotheses are tested. The first states that the display of intergroup discrimination will lead to an increased sense of perceived control. The second states that low levels of perceived control (manipulated through a control-threatening exclusion para...

We present a case study of an ongoing research and outreach project "ProtoPolicyAsia" which aims at adapting participatory speculative design to address issues surrounding the elderly and persons with disabilities (PwDs) in the Malaysian context. This is a relatively new approach compared to the tried-and-tested method in the UK government and conv...

Our aim was to examine the effect of mobile phone’s presence on learning and memory among undergraduates. A total of 119 undergraduates completed a memory task and the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS). As predicted, those without phones had higher recall accuracy compared to those with phones. Results showed a significant negative relationship betw...

The paper aims, firstly, at presenting cross-cultural design-driven research responses that explore alternative ways of conceptualising the delivery of healthcare, through participatory speculative design. Secondly, it aims at offering a comparative study, which explores this approach in the theme of ageing in place, with different groups of senior...

The paper aims, firstly, at presenting cross-cultural design-driven research responses that explore alternative ways of conceptualising the delivery of healthcare, through participatory speculative design. Secondly, it aims at offering a comparative study, which explores this approach in the theme of ageing in place, with different groups of senior...

This study investigates the use of movement sensor data from a smart watch to infer an individual's emotional state. We present our findings on a user study with 50 participants. The experimental design is a mixed-design study; within-subjects (emotions; happy, sad, neutral) and between-subjects (stimulus type: audio-visual "movie clips", audio "mu...

Background: Research in psychology has shown that the way a person walks reflects that person’s current mood (or emotional state). Recent studies have used smartphones to detect emotional states from movement data. Objective: This study investigates the use of movement sensor data from a smart watch to infer an individual’s emotional state. We pres...

Older adults are consistently performing poorer than young adults in Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, although the difference narrows significantly when the stimuli are dynamic and ecologically valid settings. However most published ToM studies are predominantly in Western populations. The aim of this study is to compare older and young adults on both c...

This study investigates the use of accelerometer data from a smart watch to infer an individual's emotional state. We present our preliminary findings on a user study with 50 participants. Participants were primed either with audio-visual (movie clips) or audio (classical music) to elicit emotional responses. Participants then walked while wearing...

This study investigates the use of accelerometer data from a smart watch to infer an individual’s emotional state. We present our preliminary findings on a user study with 50 participants. Participants were primed either with audio-visual (movie clips) or audio (classical music) to elicit emotional responses. Participants then walked while wearing...

Older adults are consistently performing poorer than young adults in Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, although the difference narrows significantly when the stimuli are dynamic and ecologically valid settings. However most ToM studies are predominantly in Western populations. The aim of this study is to compare older and young adults on both cognitive a...

Dogs respond to human emotional expressions. However, it is unknown whether dogs can match emotional faces to voices in an intermodal matching task or whether they show preferences for looking at certain emotional facial expressions over others, similar to human infants. We presented 52 domestic dogs and 24 seven-month-old human infants with two di...

Dogs can match human genders when viewing a live person with vocal playback in a cross-modal discrimination task. In addition, dogs behave differently towards a live human male, with more defensive aggression shown towards human males compared to females. We investigated whether domestic dogs could gender-match a human male or female voice to a sti...